Be My Baby by Susan Andersen Read Free Book Online Page B

fingers at him. “See you around.”
    Unable to prevent himself from watching the swing of her hips as she walked away, Luke rubbed absently at the streak of heat that lay just below the skin of his forearm and wondered what the hell had just happened here.
     
    “Why, Beauregard Butler Dupree, as I live and breathe! I couldn’t believe it when Tommy said you were lookin’ for little ole me. To what do I owe this honor, sir—you finally gonna break down and take me out for a night on the town?” The skimpily clad, busty blonde waitress who’d suddenly materialized out of the bar’s smoky gloom glanced beyond him to Juliet. “Oops, I guess not, huh? Or you prob’ly wouldn’t a dragged along your date.”
    “Who, this?” Beau feigned incredulity as he looked from the waitress to Juliet and back again. “This isn’t my date, Dora, dawlin’, this here’s my…” What, genius? He could hardly claim “sister” because Dora was a friend of the older sister of one of Anabel’s friends and she’d know better. “…Cousin Juliet from up North. Say hi to Dora Wexler, Cousin Juliet.”
    “Hello, Dora, it’s nice to meet you.”
    “You know I’m savin’ all my lovin’ for you,” he assured the waitress. Actually, she was just his type; he didn’t know why he hadn’t asked her out already.
    “Oh, I’m just sure you are, sugar.” Dora ran a blood-red, inch-long fingernail down his stubbled cheek and rubbed her breast against his arm as she leaned past him to say to Juliet, “Rumor has it that Beauregard here was the only sixth-grader in all of Orleans Parish with a five o’clock shadow, Juliet—did you know that?”
    Beau felt Juliet’s gaze like inquisitive fingers against his perpetually shadowed jaw; then her attention went past him to the waitress plastered to his side. “No, I hadn’t heard that,” she said in her well-bred voice. “But then our branches of the…family…haven’t always been close.”
    Dora found innovative ways to press against him as she pursued the conversation. “Is this your first trip to the Crescent City, then?”
    “I’ve been to New Orleans before, but onlybriefly. It’s my first visit to the French Quarter.”
    “No shit? The Quarter’s where you’ll find all the action, hon. But I guess you’re findin’ that out. Tommy, there”—Dora’s chin hitched in the direction of the bartender laconically swabbing down the far end of the bar—“tells me y’all caught the show. What’d you think a that?”
    “It was…interesting.” A slight smile suddenly tilted the corner of Juliet’s lips. “Quite truthfully, unlike anything I’ve ever before seen. I found Boom Boom LaTreque, in particular, quite amazing.”
    “Aren’t those ta-tas somethin’ else again? And the really amazing thing is that they’re gonna be all hers in just three more payments.”
    Beau shifted in his seat. It was too damn hot to have a woman draped all over him, and Dora’s perfume was growing cloying. Why the hell was Juliet being so gracious? He’d thought for sure that narrow little nose of hers would be high in the air. At the very least, he’d expected a bit of condescension when she spoke to Dora—whereupon he could sit back and watch the fur fly when Dora ripped her a new one. Damn. Clearly that wasn’t going to happen. It was time to quit playing around and get down to business.
    He peeled Dora off of him. “I’ve heard Clyde Lydet is a regular here. I need to talk to him.”
    She regarded him sulkily. “I thought you came in to see me.”
    “And so I did, sugar. But I’m also on the job, and it’d be remiss of me to neglect it strictly for my own pleasure.”
    The music started up, presaging a new act, and Dora raised her voice to be heard over it. “So why are ya draggin’ your cousin around if you’re so all-fired professional?”
    “An excellent question,” Juliet commended the waitress and turned an inquiringly raised eyebrow on him. “Why are you